Juli and I must be putterers because we always seem to come up with more projects to do while we’re at the cottage. One thing that always bugged us was the entrance way. It’s the first thing you walk into when you enter the cottage and you’re greeted with yellow knotty pine, a terrible light fixture, and an exposed coat rack.

The first thing I did was paint everything white and replace the ugly glass ceiling fixture (which seems to make an appearance in every apartment in Toronto) with a simple ceramic fitting.

Note to self: We really need to replace that old brown metal door!

Juli has been taking Japanese dress making classes and now she has a lot of confidence with the sewing machine. She made this great gingham curtain to hide our jackets and shoes.

Another quick fix was this simple doormat and cast iron door stop by Makoto Koizumi.

It looks just like a river stone.

We put up a little coat rack behind the door for another place to hang stuff. You can never have too many hangers!

Here is a picture of how the entryway looked before. Even with the sunlight coming in, it was still really dark.